The present invention relates to poly(ether sulfone)s and poly(ether amide sulfone)s and methods of their preparation, more specifically to poly(arylene ether sulfone)s and poly(arylene ether amide sulfone)s prepared from post-consumer polycarbonates and/or polyesters.
Current methods for recycling PET involve melting the thermoplastic and reformulating new products from the melt. This process is limited as to how many times it can be implemented because the recycling process progressively degrades the mechanical properties of the polymer.
Depolymerization of waste plastic bottles provides an abundant source of monomers for new materials. Recently, a depolymerization of PET catalyzed by a bifunctional catalyst, triazabicycloundecene (TBD), was used to form monomer bis(hydroxyethyl terephthalate) (BHET), which can be used to produce virgin PET. Generally, the nucleophilic agent (i.e., ethylene glycol) is employed in superstoichiometric amounts at high temperatures in order to achieve appreciable conversion to the desired BHET monomer.
An ongoing need exists for more efficient methods of recycling polyesters and polycarbonates.